Halloween Crazy

 Well.....since I booked tickets for us to go to a Halloween Scarefest (family friendly), we have all been on a countdown to Halloween.

We took our friend (in our childcare bubble) to the National Forest Adventure Farm for Spudfest this year. We all enjoyed it so much, we booked for Halloween the next day. It is such a great day out for families, and for those with additional needs there is plenty of space, huge choice of activities and something for everyone. Even now, with the Covid-19 restrictions in place, numbers are limited, staff are cleaning constantly, there is handgel all around to compliment the soap and water sinks available too. We felt safe there, and that says a lot.

I feel really sorry for the children who love halloween this year though. They can't go trick or treating, can't have all their friends over and so I'm not sure what Halloween will be like for everyone in 2020.

Our house was decorated inside as soon as the tickets were booked (October 1st). The girls have put up 3D faces on the walls, hanging pumpkins, halloween bunting and other decorations throughout the house. I have bought patterned paper to make paper chains, but have put it somewhere safe- a lethal and silly mistake on my part.

There is even a skeleton who's foot gets stuck in the cutlery draw repeatedly (just as well it can't feel any more!).

The scarefest was yesterday. With coronavirus, bookings were for one of the two daily sessions. The girls wanted to have their faces painted and to go in halloween costumes. Thankfully, they both agreed to wear jumpers and coats to stay warm too. 

It took me over an hour to paint their faces, but I do think they both looked good.

 I booked the afternoon session because we all have trouble with sleeping lately. It meant we had four hours (the same as if we had got there for the morning session) to explore the mummy maize maze, enter the haunted mirror maze house, pick pumpkins from the field (catching a lift on the tractor), feed the farm animals, enter the musical maze, bounce on  the giant pillow, see the broomstick training, go on the funfair rides and have free time to explore whilst hubby and I tried to havea hot drink together (once we were certain they all knew their way around and where we were).

We had chips for lunch with hot drinks all round- we needed them to warm up from the icy wind. 

There was a demon wandering about, handing out medals to children who were scarily dressed. Since he was mainly targerting the younger children, ours were getting upset. I hoped that explaining their additional needs to him would help. He was great- he played a little game with them and let them win a medal each. Phew!

As usual, their goats were adorable. The guinea pigs got a fuss, cows, pigs and goats were fed and cuddled, then we returned outside. 

I knew, as soon as I saw the maize maze, that I would be the one to get lost in there. Miss A got a stitch so was walking with me (on speed 2) with hubby too. I managed a couple of circles inside the maze, lost our friend and Miss G, entered a second field through an open gate, where the maze continued, and continued to be lost until I saw our friend K coming to rescue us and reunite us all again.

Driving over the large lumps of stones and gravel has left my shoulders and back painful today- so much so that I didn't want to go to sleep last night. I figured it might not hurt so much if  I didn't have to wake up. That logic didn't work though- my medication and a long day combined to help me sleep by 3.30am.

Today they are waiting for the paint on their pumpkins to dry out so they can add a second layer and paint faces or patterns on them. We have two very large pumpkins on our dining table. One pink and one white right now. Miss G chose a smaller, green pumpkin and has decided not to paint hers.

I have promised to buy some pumpkins to make soup with, and we are all going pumpkin picking again on thursday too. Hopefully those pumpkins will last until halloween.

We are having a Halloween party here, within our covid bubble. I have got a sort of treasure hunt ready, my friend has some games and I need to find some more activities they can get up to aswell.  Wish us luck 😉

(and the countdown has begun to the Christmas event at the farm too #NFAF )